Mr. SKIA's new idea: Post picks pronto

Because I've been so late to the party on so many different bloggable occurrences, I thought I'd get in early with my picks to make it to the Super Bowl.

New Orleans over Minnesota
I'm picking the Saints in part because it's the outcome I want. You see, while I hate the Vikings and I hate Brett Favre, I love Sean Payton. As I've mentioned before, Payton was the quarterback at my high school when I was in elementary school. Sure, many high schools have cooler people than a coach to root for, but when your other athletic -- and trust me, I use that word loosely -- claim to fame plays in the WNBA (Candace Parker), you take what you can get. So I'm a big Sean Payton fan. And, my fandom notwithstanding, Payton is a very, very good coach. And the fella he's facing -- Brad Childress -- ain't.

Besides, just like with Kurt Warner last week, I don't see Favre and the Vikings playing back-to-back perfect games, turnover-wise. They'll have to play error-free offensive football to beat the Saints, and I just don't see that happening.

Jets over Indy
I made the mistake last week of picking the high-flying passing attack and home field advantage (San Diego) over a punishing ground attack, stout defense, and superior coaching (the Jets). My justification then was the quarterbacks, because I felt more confident in Philip Rivers than Mark Sanchez. Well, Peyton Manning's ostensibly has an even larger edge over Sanchez -- and the Colts passing attack is higher-flying, and their home-field more advantageous, for that matter -- but I'm still going with New York.

Like my NFC pick, this one comes largely from the heart. One, I've never bought into Manning as a winner, and think it would be perfect poetic justice if his lone championship -- one which I had said again and again he would never win -- came courtesy of my Bears. But what would be even more poetic and infinitely justicier would be for the Jets to be the team that knocks Indy out of the playoffs. Because the Jets are only in the playoffs because the Colts handed them a victory in Week 16.

Or at least that's the common perception. While it's true there's no guarantee the Jets would have lost that game, then-unbeaten Indy did lead 15-10 in the third quarter (and had possession of the ball) when coach Jim Caldwell made the karma-annihilating call to pull Manning and the rest of his starters, sacrificing the chance to do something truly historic in the annals of sports. The decision was not a popular one with the hometown fans for obvious reasons; to not even try to maintain a perfect season is, well, a rather imperfect strategy. But I don't think anyone ever expected this: that the 29-15 comeback win would propel the Jets into the playoffs, and put them in position to knock out the Colts.

Let's review:
1. Instead of pursuing immortality, the Colts essentially guaranteed themselves a loss, preferring to ensure the health of their starters for a prolonged playoff run.
2. Indy fans felt betrayed, and Caldwell -- who to that point had been unbeaten in his coaching career -- almost instantaneously became a bit of a pariah.
3. The Jets won that game, which ultimately allowed them to make the playoffs; their thrashing of the Bengals in Week 17 would have been meaningless had they lost to the Colts.
4. The Colts now face the possibility of being denied a prolonged playoff run by the Jets, a team they would never have seen in the postseason had they been focused on winning a football game -- and, by extension, making history -- instead of a misguided and overly-conservative agenda to stay healthy in order to make the prolonged playoff run that the Jets currently imperil.

I mean, the Jets winning, it has to happen, doesn't it? Rookie quarterback playing on the road be damned, it has to happen. The only thing that could possibly prevent it is that it's perhaps a little too perfect. But god do I want to see it.

So that's what I've got for Super Bowl 40-whatever-the-hell-we're-on: Jets vs. Saints. Of course, at last count this poll on ESPN.com had it as the least likely pairing, with only 9% of nearly 150,000 fans choosing it (compared to 42% for Colts-Saints and 38% for Colts-Vikings). Even in New York, only 41% of the people think the Jets will win, and most of them think that if they do, they'll face the Vikes. Truth be told, I see an interesting Super Bowl matchup regardless of the outcomes this week: Colts-Saints pits two great offenses and would-be undefeated teams that most people thought were the two strongest throughout the regular season; Colts-Vikings is two of the top-10 QBs of all-time trying to get that elusive second ring to propel themselves solidly into the top-5; Jets-Vikings would give us a lesser version of Favre vs. the Packers, with most players in the New York locker room reportedly not interested in joining one of Favre's Wrangler-clad pick up games; and finally Jets-Saints, which is the irresistible force vs the immovable object, to decide once and for all if defense really does win championships.

In truth, Jets-Saints is probably the least interesting matchup, story-wise. Which is exactly why it'll be the one we get.